Dark Castle
by kimmiesjoy
Summary: "I have a gift for you, Mr. Castle." She hummed, leaning closer to him, with one hand to the hard surface of his desk as she slid a brown package across the glossy surface. A Halloween tale.
1. Dark & Stormy

**AN**: I've been good this time and completed it before I'm posting. One a day for the next four days culminating on Halloween! And yes this might have been somewhat influenced by the storm that just hit the UK. :)

* * *

In a pitch black blur of ferocity the rain clattered the windows of his home and Castle lifted his head, sighed and finally gave up. He closed the lid of his laptop and stared through the glass of the book shelves out into the living room, the loft stood silent and unyielding as the storm raged on.

From there his eyes followed the flickers from lightning flashes that echoed ominously around the room, bouncing from surface to surface, from wooden floors to piano keys with no care where they fell or what shadows they left decimated in their wake.

The bright white light brightened the room for the barest of seconds before the darkness won out again and his pupils dilated and contracted as they bore the brunt of each sudden flash.

The midnight hour as Halloween rolled in and his home subjected to power outages and raging storms seemed fitting and for once not so much cliche as traditional. It was a dark and stormy night and in his life he remembered those as being some of his best.

Another lightning strike nearby sent cascading shards of illumination dancing through his home and drew his attention back to the living room, and to the lone figure perched at the windows edge.

She was silhouetted by the gloom and watery moonlight that slunk in the through rain smeared glass, tumbled past the silken drapes and pooled messily at her feet. The darkness bore her into being and gave her up to another flash of blinding white light.

Unable to tear his eyes away from her as the light faded and the thunder rolled in hard, heavy, powerfully rattling the windows and setting his teeth on edge, Castle watched a lazy hand drift from hip to thigh and back again. She drew her arm about her chest and watched the night race by.

He sensed her movement rather than saw it, felt the waft of her ethereal presence resonate through the room and when the next bolt of lightning hit it appeared to strike his street, his building, perhaps his very heart and he knew instinctively where she would be.

In one beat of time that lasted no longer than a sigh she moved, cast away from shadow and drawn to him. From dark to light, from the window staring into darkness to the doorway of his office, their eyes met and she crossed the threshold coming to dead stop in front of his desk.

Long dark hair spilled down her shoulders, rippled in waves that lapped at the curve of her spine, caressed her neck in ways his fingers longed to. It spilled into the valley of her cleavage, tickled at the edges of the deep vee of her obsidian gown and curled messily about her face.

The satin smooth stretch of material licked her skin as if she had been painted into it. Poured, perhaps. As if both she and the dress had been made as one by an eccentric shaman savant on one long ago dark night similar to this one.

There was nothing of the everyday about her and everything of magic.

When she spoke, he startled, his thick swallow audible in the lightning white of the room before the thunder returned and the rain attacked his windows, screaming for entrance and drowning him out completely.

"It's the witching hour." She spoke, her voice floating to him, deeper than usual and accented in a tone he wasn't sure he had heard before, both new and old wrapped around the way she lay her tongue to the words.

He didn't contradict her, nor comment on the use of her phrase, and the smile that stretched out the width of her bright red lips told him she liked that he stayed silent.

"I have a gift for you, Mr. Castle." She hummed, leaning closer to him, with one hand to the hard surface of his desk as she slid a brown package across the glossy surface.

Unable to hold his tongue any longer he broke his own enforced silence with a single utterance, "Kate?"

She smiled again, a smoky edge to the seductive sweetness, and her fingertips touched his, forcing his eyes from the glowing opal green down to another precious gem that nestled snugly on her finger.

One lone digit teased along the length of his middle finger before she pressed the package further into his hands and stepped back.

"Read it, Rick." She pleaded, though her tone never drifted from teasing, sensual, mystical, "Read it, then come and find me."

His eyebrows knit together and he watched her step around his desk, the long dress whispering her departure with every step, until she paused in the doorway of their bedroom. She turned, slowly, every movement graceful and unhindered by forethought, she laid her tongue to her lip, traced the skin and sighed, her eyes falling to his hands and the package she had placed within them, before slipping into the room and closing the door.

Knowing exactly where she was when she had specifically told him to come and find her held him intrigued, but the packet in his hand had him positively mesmerised.

With slow unfurling fingers and his eyes cast to the bedroom door he withdrew what appeared to be a ridiculously thin manuscript. Cast in withered leather binding he untied a knotted ribbon and pulled loose papers that appeared to be written in her own untidy scrawl.

Casting another glance towards the bedroom door he lifted the pages to his face and inhaled slowly, not even sure why he felt the need to breathe the pages her fingers had glanced. He could almost taste the movement of her pen as it marred and beautified each sheet in turn.

There had always been something of the written word about her, and muse hadn't always done it justice, she was beyond revelation and dalliance and the flighty spirit of inspiration, there was more of magic and mystery to her than he could fathom, light and dark, love and pain, passion and peace.

Castle inhaled once more, imagining the feel of her over the page before he turned his chair closer to the only source of illumination, other than the woman herself, several candles burning and flickering behind him.

A great howl of wind rattled the window frames but before the next lightning flash would come, before it was belayed by a thunderous roar he'd already lost himself in the papers she presented to him.

There was a date at the top and he fought the gasp that wanted to escape free from his chest. The wonderment and natural curiosity set light within him as a lone finger traced the words and he read them again.

It was written two years previously, before they had even begun, accompanied by a simple phrase.

_Sometimes I dream of him._


	2. Dreaming

_Sometimes I dream of him._

* * *

She emerges from the bedroom, her eyes cast low to the tap of her own heels and she feels powerful in leather lace up boots. The corseted backings pulling tight from ankle to knee make her skin tingle in anticipation and each resounding footstep falls with a boom that tells her she made the right choice.

Her costume is close enough to what she was hoping for, a flare of steampunk meeting seafarer, so that she could pass for a modern day Grace O'Malley, Anne Bonney or Mary Read.

Her hair is knotted in sea-salt sprayed, dank tendrils, coiled and ratted to perfection and falling the entire length of her back and she roughs a hand through it, smirking a little, pleased with herself.

From the thick black belt and silver dagger synched tight at her hip to the skin tight black leather pants, she's not done badly at all. With the added addition of the black corset tightened over the white gypsy shirt that slips from her shoulders and the dark slash of eye shadow and the thick line of mascara - Kate's certain she looks the part.

The Pirate Queen.

Scurge of the sea.

This Halloween she embodies the spirit of women who took no prisoners, lived the life of outlaws on the open wave with no one to lay claim to them. They forged their own path and would plow the sandy depths with nothing but the code of the water as their guide, the salt air their lord and master and the turning tide the only justice they would ever need.

Kate sighs, this night she feels free. Free to cast off the shadow of the cop recently returned to work and aching from bullet wounds. Free to think of him.

And she does.

Alone in the darkness of her apartment, she makes ready for his party and allows herself to get lost in the fantasy that perhaps this night could mean more to them, more than she ever expected it to.

Her skin prickles as she wanders through her home and she freezes, awareness washing over her like ice water, hand dropping to her hip and sliding back, only to find a sheathed knife instead of a gun. She spins, panic flaring like fire to the center of her chest and from the shadow he emerges.

She's not sure why or even how he came to be here but the mere thought of him racing through her mind seems to have conjured him, like magic, and she stares, mouth falling open at the sight of him.

She knows the man before her, the man who steps from the darkness and into her light like a man possessed and yet she knows him not at all.

His eyes loom in the silence, in the ether of early evening, wide and coal black with want. The sun sets slowly through the windows, throwing flames at his feet, and at his back a ripple of movement catches her eyes and she focuses in on his costume.

Immaculate as ever in his pristine jet black suit, it is the cape fluttering at his back that draws her attention. No mockery of superhero, no spandex or tights, there is a sophistication to the man before her that takes her breath away. A nod to a bygone era and an elemental spark of danger that holds her enthralled.

The material flutters again and it draws her eyes up, slowly following the curve of his thigh, his waist, arms and shoulders. The high neck stops level with his ears and fall of the silk somehow expands his already broad chest.

His eyes meet hers and somewhere at the back of his throat he lets out a long, low growl, giving himself up to the night.

His eyes roam her body like a lover's caress until her skin is quivering and the blood rushing through her veins feels like fire and ice in tempestuous battle.

His gaze alone does this to her, god only knows what will happen when they touch.

And they will touch. She can feel it in her soul.

He will touch her because perhaps this night has set him free too and she may be the _Mistress_ of the Sea, but here, here stands the man she has dreamt about for months, if not years. The _Master_ of the _Macabre_.

He is the man she knows. The man she craves. The man she _loves_. Only this night he is more.

He is burning forests in the pitch of midnight, he is dry cracking timber splintered in white hot flame, he is the thunderous roar of horse hooves and the deafening cry of her heartbeat.

He is her Castle ... only darker.


	3. Dark Castle

**AN**: Thank you for reading x and love for those that put up with me on my not so good days.

* * *

How he comes to be in her home she never questions and how he gained entry when the door remains locked is a conundrum her logical mind should leap at and attack, but the only word that leaves her mouth is the silken, sweet moan of his name.

"Castle." It slips out on a gasp and she shivers.

He growls again.

Inhaling slowly through his nose, Kate watches as he angles his head like a predator, his eyes on her unblinking and drinking her in. She gasps again, the noise escaping her chest and she curses silently at her own ragged heartbeat. The slightest shift of material as she breathes deeply attracts his attention and his gaze travels over her body like a heated blur. From the locking of their pupils to the swell of her lips and down to the rise and fall of her cleavage - bound tight in her costume.

She doesn't need words, doesn't need talk, doesn't need heated discussion or debate and the storm that starts to roll in across the sky feels like the embodiment of the one within her.

Sometimes things come to a head and a great roar of emotion rises up, takes holds, rips everything to shreds - tonight she doesn't need; she _wants_. And it's welling up inside like a tempest, tearing everything asunder.

He knows, he must! And another growl tears through him, low and guttural and though he is still on the other side of the room she can feel it all over her skin, in the follicles of her hair as they stand on end, and licking out low and hard between her legs.

His very breath has her burning for him. The looks he casts her in, igniting the flame until she's dancing on a pyre of deepest, darkest desire. And still he hasn't touched her.

Yet.

"Castle." She croaks, blinking slowly only to find that in that millisecond of time it takes for her to speak he has crossed the room, and now he hovers before her, eyes low and his nose brushing just above the skin of her cheek.

How?

She doesn't know, doesn't understand how he could move that fast, because for one second they stood a rooms width apart and in the time it took for his name to weave its way free of her lips he was next to her, reaching for her, as close as could be but not quite touching.

She inhales to say his name again, to call him out, to break her silence with more than her desperate breath but all she does is draw him closer and her hands claw for his shirt with a will of their own, as if she is drowning in his very presence, so overwhelmed is she by the closeness of this version of her partner. She's drowning and she needs an anchor.

She needs him.

Closer.

His head dips and he watches her through lashes that cast long spidery shadows over his cheeks. He stares down, unwavering, the force of his gaze penetrating her clothing, through layers of cotton and leather down to her skin, through flesh and blood and bone and deep down further inside, to that place within her he has somehow always been able to see.

Since day one, when he watched her eyes shimmer with tears as he told her story carelessly, almost callously, until now, when he looks and sees that darkness within her, steps into it and makes it his own.

Her very own hero. Dark Castle. Her partner. The man who stands beside her no matter what.

He doesn't blink, but rather holds her eyes within his own, their mixed reflection staring back at her as one hand opens and the fingers of his larger, warmer hands coil about her wrist.

The thick length of his thumb strokes across her pulse point and she shudders unable to resist. Without thought or second guessing her hand lifts and the tips of her fingers reach out - tentative yet sure - to stroke across the curve of his lower lip.

Each pad trips lightly over his skin and her heart thunders as her fingers quiver and though they stand now in the middle of the living room with one step - his hands at her waist - he drives them back into the wall of her bedroom.

One single step that spans the entire room, one step that should be twenty, one step that leaves her eyes wide as another mystery crashes over her. Floating, levitating, flying? As if he had lifted her from her feet and catapulted them both here.

Impossible, mysterious, intriguing.

Deadly.

A million words race through her head and he chuckles darkly, as if he can hear every single one of them. She opens her eyes to find him staring down at her, one fist coiling in the tangled laces at her back, fingertips making urgent sweeps between cotton and leather.

With barely a breath of space between them he reaches for her hand and draws it up above her head, moving in. Her eyes slam shut once more as she waits for, longs, hopes and wishes for him to kiss her.

Instead his nose nudges at her cheek, his heated exhale chasing across her skin as he nuzzles in closer, tilting her head to one side and making her gasp when the rough pad of his tongue grazes over the column of her throat.

Outside lightning lights up the sky and a boom of thunder sets her on edge as the storm finally hits and like a spark of electricity through her already bubbling blood - she jumps - she clutches him tighter and clings to him for support.

He hums something soothing into her ear and the very vibrations of his voice make her legs weak. They tremble until they give out completely and even the confidence boosting leather boots are powerless to hold her up.

The hand at her back drifts, as his mouth settles over her pulse, and she startles when his fingers slip beneath the short ruffled layers of her shirt. His thumb drifting out across her stomach until her abdominal muscles are dancing to the erotic beat of his forbidden touch.

His thumbs hook in her belt loop and the sharp press of his canines dig into her shoulder when he finds the leather and rides the material down the length of her long legs. His fingers open and close as he moves, until his wide hands are dwarfing her thigs and he's lifting, tugging at the tensing muscle, pulling and wrapping her leg around his waist.

She tries to find breath but her fingers map his chest instead and slide below the collar of his shirt, she tries to open her eyes but the silken slip of his body over hers holds them shut. He presses in closer and makes her shiver, invokes a darker power with each touch, makes earth, air, wind and fire race over her skin.

He speaks her name, rocks forwards, chases each letter with the touch of his lips, his teeth, his tongue to her body and her eyes open wide in disbelief, and close again in pleasure just from the _feel_ of him.

He moves in to take that first, sweet seductive kiss, his lips hot and moist over hers and everything in her screams that she needs to see him, to look deeply into him when it happens like this and she smiles and opens her eyes.

* * *

Opens her eyes only to find herself alone in bed, burning head to toe with the mistaken memory of his touch.

Her heart aches in her chest and she catches the sob before it can escape into the night.

It was a dream and she hates herself for not having the thing she wants most, for not allowing herself this one desire. She knows sleep won't come easy tonight, now her mind burns with the raging fever of _what if _ and any peace she finds will be broken by his name echoing from her lips a thousand times over.

Giving up she slides from the bed, reaches for the paper and begins to write.

* * *

_Sometimes I dream of him._

_I wake in darkness and my heart races, thunders against the rip through my chest and for a few seconds I think I see him in the doorway, then I blink and he's gone and once again I'm alone._

_Sometimes I wish he was there, not a specter floating in my mind._

_Sometimes I wish he was with me and he'd stay._


	4. Waking

In his loft Castle cast his eyes to the bedroom door, still closed and housing his fiancée, and his heart clenched tight in his chest for the woman she used to be. He set aside the papers she gifted him and rebound them slowly, wrapping leather and twine around the words that she poured onto paper as heartbreak thundered through her chest.

Alone, in self inflicted darkness, and on this very night two years ago she dreamt of him and wrote it down.

* * *

He blew out the candles one by one and when he entered the bedroom he found her sound asleep. He took in the time on the clock and discovered they had barely minutes of the witching hour left; her tale had held his attention so thoroughly. What had seemed like mere seconds of time lost in her story had been a while longer.

Castle paused at the end of the bed and took in her face, serene in gentle shadow. With her hair spread out over the pillows and the sheets kicked to the bottom of the bed, she could've been plucked from the pages of a fairy tale, a myth born of legend and laid out at his feet, but he knew her in more simplistic terms, as the woman he loved.

He crossed the room slowly, blinking hard and rather than hovering over her as he had done many mornings past - with a mug of coffee in hand, and a soft smile - he slid down onto the bed at her side and traced a finger out over the bare skin of her throat.

He thumbed the hollow of her jugular, shifted his body closer, moulded himself to her side and allowed his fingers to climb and caress the curve of her jaw. With his lips to her neck and the night surrounding them he whispered softly, "Kate. Wake up."

He took his time, mapped the skin visible to him and traced over that hidden by the silk of her negligee. He hummed her name in quiet repetition, wondered at the woman who could offer up the tiny pieces of her past and then fall asleep in his bed, knowing he'd want answers, knowing he'd wake her to get them.

Perhaps expecting it, maybe even desiring it.

He brought her out of sleep on the soft call of his voice, the light touch of his lips on her skin and when he finally stepped between her and the tug of dreams, she turned towards him, fingers reaching in the darkness.

"Mmm?" Her lashes lifted slowly, confusion heavy in the green of her eyes until she saw his face, "Castle- " she smiled, "You're here."

He hummed, let the seconds drift into minutes, stroking over the gentle heat of her chest before he spoke again, "Kate. What was that?" He asked, lips buried deep in the sweet, sweat warmed crevice of her neck, tasting the reaction of every breath as it moved over her skin.

"You read it?"

"Yes." He nipped at the word, pressed his yearning into the curve of her shoulder as she avoided him, kept at it until she gasped. "I read it."

"And?"

"Kate, what was it?"

She yawned, giving in to another shiver as it raced up her spine and drove her body into his, "Therapy exercise from a long time ago." Her voice was thick and gravelly, yet tender with the remnants of sleep and the touch of him.

"Hmm?" He didn't ask beyond the sound of curiosity and his fingers wove through her hair, up and over her ears. She closed her eyes and he touched the lids, her lips parted and he couldn't help but stroke over her mouth - just as she had done to him in her dream.

"I wrote down the nightmares." She whispered, her eyes finding his once more, a cloud of memory marring her vision. Then she smiled and reached for him, "I wrote down the dreams too."

"You dreamt about -"

She hummed, burrowed closer, "I dreamt about you, yes. And us."

"In costume." He grinned into her skin, found that little spot at the back of her neck that made her shiver, made her duck her head and squirm away and blush.

"It was Halloween." She defended, breathless.

"It's Halloween tonight."

"Yes."

"And tomorrow."

She smiled, "Yes."

"When we get married." He licked out at the pulse again, felt the heat of her retreating flush and took a few seconds to bring it back, tease it into life once more.

"Yes." She gasped, arching against him, her head thrown back in sudden surrender, allowing him further access. Her fingers dug into his shoulders, a pinched tight grip that only eased when his licking turned to kisses, his mouth rough and greedily feeding on her skin.

"Was it a warning?" He asked gruffly.

She startled, gripped him harder, pulled him tighter to her, "What? No."

"Pirate Queen?" His hand met the soft curve of her hip, and he grinned, "Scurge of the sea? Should I be worried?"

She touched at his smile, gave back her own, "Fantasy."

"One of mine now." His hand trickled low to her thigh, spread her knees, found the inner curve and meandered there with sweeping touches. "Do you own those boots?"

Breathless with every word, "Yes."

"The entire costume?" His fingers travelled higher.

"Yesssss."

"I'm sure I have a cape somewhere." He grinned against her cheek, refusing the kiss she offered, nipping at her lower lip instead, taking her between his teeth and nudging at her nose when she reached for him.

"I wanted freedom, Castle. Escape." She found his eyes, silver sparks that flickered with each blink. "A way to be with you when I was weak so I dreamt it." She sighed, "I wanted to be strong."

"You're strong." He growled, daring contradiction, with his lips pressed to her own.

"Stronger together." She hummed, nipping back, chasing his kiss when he dipped back down towards her throat and stayed there, breathless himself.

"Therapy?" He questioned, finally, "Did you -?"

She shook her head, "No, I never showed him that one." Her hand ran the length of his jaw, cupped lightly at his face, "That one was for me. My -"

"Hope?"

"Yes."

They drift in silence for a few moments, his heart as tightly bound as the pages of her dream, with thoughts of the words she had written.

"Your hero?" He couldn't help it, that curious part of him that never gave up needing answers, the part of him that loved her viciously, dug in claws to hold on, scratched past the surface to know more.

"You were saving me for a long time, Castle." She spoke slowly, reverently, laying each word as bare as her soul. She showed him a truth she hoped he already knew and with stark eyes born of wonder she turned to him and said it again, slower, "A long time."

"What was I?" He hummed, laving her pulse and teasing at the beat until he could nip at it with his teeth. "Vampire?" He questioned, growled low in her ear in threat, "Beast? Jekyll and Hyde?"

"Fantasy." Kate supplied again, "Someone I wanted but couldn't have."

"You could've -"

She shook her head, "It wasn't time."

Her fingers tightened and she tried to roll them, only he wouldn't let her, his knee planted itself between her own and he twisted so he could pin her to the bed. Castle stared down as her hands roamed over his back, her lips quirking with a smile that made him wonder if this had been her plan all along.

Lightning came once more, rain battered every surface and the thunder returned in a ferocious drum beat that matched her heart.

"That's what tonight is for." He whispered, pulling her back to the topic with his lips at the shell of her ear, "Ghosts and goblins, mythical monsters, Pirate Queens and _fantasy_ -" he breathed the words, "- made _flesh_."

He squeezed her thigh, let himself taste her skin again and stole a fevered kiss, swallowing down her blissful moan. From hip to waist, he touched lightly over her hands, arms and shoulders until he was smoothing the hair from her face and pulling back from her lips breathless.

She shook her head, "I prefer now and tomorrow." Reminding him of the possibility, of what was yet to come. Heat and the slow cinder burn of forever in each sweep and caress, her eyes opened slowly as the lightning hit again, sparking through her iris as unblinking she looked up, traced his lips, touched his face and whispered back, "I prefer reality."


End file.
